


Wide, Wild and Free

by halahan



Series: San's Resolution [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: ATEEZ Storyline Event, M/M, Running Away, hwa is san's older bro, no explicit romance but if i ever decide to continue this then hongsan will end up together, parental pressure, yunsang are together but u can't really see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halahan/pseuds/halahan
Summary: San knows he's luckier than most, but he can't help but be eaten inside by the pressure, a seed blooming into flowers of frustration, anger, and doubt. He dreams of wildflower fields.
Relationships: Choi San/Kim Hongjoong
Series: San's Resolution [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842184
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Wide, Wild and Free

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't win but i like what i wrote so i decided to post it here too  
> [original storyline post](https://t.co/gf3oz1cXci?amp=1) (u might need a vpn to open it)

San is sick of his life. In his family, it's all about pressure. The pressure to be the perfect son, the perfect student, the perfect man in every situation. Pressure to be good in everything he attempts and to do as well as his brother in everything he does. It's tiring and it's making him not want to try anything anymore. _Why bother trying if you know you're not going to be good enough_? San’s not a show-off but simply knowing that his parents’ eyes are on him and that at the slightest show of weakness he'll only get a half-hearted “you'll do better next time” only makes the pressure build and build and build and with it, his shoulders are heavy.

San knows he's luckier than most, but he can't help but be eaten inside by the pressure, a seed blooming into flowers of frustration, anger, and doubt.

* * *

“Let's go on a road trip!” His mother suggests one day.

San doesn't know exactly what sudden urge to travel took her, but that isn't what bothers him. Normally, he would be fine going on a road trip, he would love it even, but he frowns at the prospect of being stuck for a week inside a small car with his genius mother, his successful father, and his brother that over the years collected many titles that San has only dreamed of owning too—dreams that turned into nightmares around 10th grade—and that, in his mind, can't bring him anything good.

But, fighting with San’s tiredness, is San’s desperate need to fit in, to live up to the family standards, and this time again, it wins. He accepts, albeit a bit begrudgingly, and thus finds himself not even a month later in the back of the white minivan, headphones stuck to his ears as he tries to drown out the talk of prestigious schools and great achievements around him. His attention instead drifts along the edge of the horizon, carelessly tracing the canopies and mountains with his eyes, wondering what it’s like over the limit of what he can see. San’s world feels small in the cramped space of the car, and his heart longs for wide wild and free planes.

On the third day, San’s emotional scale is maxed out, and he’s minutes away from breaking. As once again he tried to escape the incessant discussions, his father had scolded him for never paying attention to what he and his mother said. _I pay too much attention_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t, because the last thing he needs at that moment is to start a fight. He knows he would lose, or at least give up. His father, however, has other plans.

“Is that what you’re like in class too?” Mr. Choi says in a voice far too calm and composed for the words he’s saying, words that push right past San’s barriers and add on to his discomfort. “You have to pay attention if you want to succeed. Is this the reason your grades have decreased since last semester?”

San wants to roll his eyes. They’re on vacation, but school still finds a way to annoy him via his grade-obsessed parents. He just shrugs, avoiding his father’s eyes he feels on him in the rearview mirror.

“You never tell us anything…” His mother adds with a sigh.

San feels like screaming all the things he’s never telling, but he stays quiet, the screams stuck in his tightened throat along with tears that for some reason are trying to come up too.

Next to San, his brother Seonghwa gives him a look. San doesn’t blame him, he’s not the reason for any of San’s ills. It’s not like he can really do anything about it either. In a way, Seonghwa receives just as much pressure to do well, but as he’s _actually doing well_ , it doesn’t seem to trouble him too much.

The hours roll away, and soon they’re well into the afternoon. Both San’s brother and father—who gave the wheel to San’s mother a little earlier—are taking a nap in their respective seats. San isn’t tired, not physically at least, so he’s awake, listening to music as he always is.

Suddenly his mother speaks up. Her words are muffled, so San pauses his music and takes the headphones off his ears, asking his mother to repeat. She seems annoyed, but she repeats. “I’m just stopping for a couple minutes, going to the bathroom and grabbing a coffee. Don’t wake up your father and Seonghwa, alright?”

He nods, ignoring the attitude. His mother gets out of the car, leaving him alone with the other sleeping two. San opens his window for a bit of fresh air, looking outside to the other cars in the parking lot, chin resting on his arm. It’s mostly empty, and the few there are look like they’re also families traveling. One car catches his attention, only a couple meters away from him. It doesn’t look like a very recent car, the design reminding him more of the late 70s, but if the metal parts are a little wobbly and have rust stains, the paint is immaculate. It’s a bright red, with a long stripe of electric blue along the hood. The retractable hood is painted the same color, but it’s folded away, leaving the people inside the car roofless under the sun. In the back seat, two boys are chatting together, sometimes laughing too. Their hair are respectively a peachy pink and platinum, colors as vibrant as their personalities seem to be. _Must be nice_ , he thinks. _Freedom_ must be nice.

The song in San’s ears ends and he sighs, his eyes falling towards the ground. There, on the warm asphalt, he sees a pair of well-worn boots—they’re covered in varied words and sentences, quotes and some doodles too, the pen ink barely flaking—they’re standing oddly close to him. San’s eyes climb up the boot owner’s legs, then body, until he finds a face. It’s a boy, not much older than him. His small face framed in locks of hair the same blue as the car’s stripe of paint that make his eyes pop out more, as they glisten in amusement. His ears are covered in silvery piercings that jingle in the light wind. The boy is also smiling down at San who, in surprise, lifts his head, hitting it on the top of the car door, making him hiss slightly. “You scared me,” he complains as the blue-haired boy laughs.

“Sorry,” he says once his laughter dies down a little. San is surprised they hadn’t managed to wake his family yet.

“What do you want?” San asks, hoping he didn’t sound too mean, as he was simply curious.

The boy hums, moving to stand right in front of the window, leaning against it with a hand on the roof rim. “I don’t really want anything, but I think I could ask you the same question.”

Now, San is confused. After all, _he_ was the one that came towards San. “I don’t—”

“You want to escape, right?”

The question takes San by surprise. Anyone else would wonder what the boy meant, but the question that comes to San is: _how did he know?_

“I know that look,” the boy says as if reading San’s mind, “I know it well as it looked back at me in the mirror for a while, and it was on both of my friends’ faces.”

San glances at the ‘friends’ the other pointed to. As if knowing that San and the stranger were talking about them, the two colored-hair boys in the red and clue car are looking at them. The taller one—with the peach hair—even waves. San awkwardly waves back, still slightly confused.

“What I’m trying to say,” the blue boy adds, “is that if you’re looking for a way out, I can provide it.”

San’s eyes widen and he looks around at his brother and father, but they’re still sound asleep, and up at him again. “But—?”

“You and I both know they’ll be fine.”

“I can’t just— I don’t even know who you are—”

The boy smiles kindly, reaching out a hand for San to shake. “Name’s Hongjoong, Kim Hongjoong. A pleasure to meet you…”

“Choi San,” the latter completes, grabbing the hand to shake it. He notices one finger with the nail painted white.

“San.”

There’s a short moment of silence. There’s something so interesting about Hongjoong, in the way he stands, relaxed, the way he seems just so comfortable in what he’s wearing—from the boots covered in colorful handwritings to his comfortable but fashionable outfit and his colorful hair—and more than anything in the way his face is nothing but kindness. That ‘something’ is the closest thing to what San had been looking for. _Freedom_. Hongjoong has it, and San wants it. All he needs to do is to ask for it.

“So?” Hongjoong tries, and San looks into his eyes once again.

San isn’t sure that if he tried to speak he would have the strength to accept, so he just nods, and Hongjoong takes it as a ‘yes’. He opens the door for San and the latter barely has the time to grab his backpack before he’s sprinting to catch up with Hongjoong’s skips towards the car.

Hongjoong briefly introduces San to his friends—Yunho with the pink hair and Yeosang with the platinum—before he invites him to sit shotgun.

The blue-haired boy turns the key and the car purrs happily, ready to leave, but the driver doesn’t start driving right away. Before that, he turns to San once again.

“If you have any second thoughts, now is the moment to act on them.”

San bites his lip, but when he spots his mother in the rearview window as she makes her way back to the family car, where Seonghwa and his father sleep, and where San is no longer. If San was having second thoughts, now would be too late to act on them. But it doesn’t matter, as he’s not having any.

“Let’s go.”

Hongjoong smiles, and pushes the pedal to the ground, driving out of the parking lot and back onto the road. San can’t help but look behind him as his family disappears around the building, then as the building becomes too small for San to see. When all he’s seen is out of his view, his eyes fall on the two boys in the back seat. They must know how it feels, to leave everything behind. They smile, so San smiles too and turns back, focusing on the road ahead instead.

Wide, wild, and _free_.

**Author's Note:**

> im not sure whether i'll write more for this au but i created the series just in case... u can subscribe to it if u want :]
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/atzplay) (writing) · [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.qa/alpacats)


End file.
